Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/378

 366 The Library. and the Royal Library at Munich, and by the courtesy of the latter institution M. Delisle is able to reproduce one of the four folio pages. That excellent bibliographer, Auguste Bernard, had conjectured from the appearance of the copy of the 36-line Bible in the Bibliotheque Nationale that it also had had an Index Rubricarum, but the leaves which appeared to 'be wanting were found in the Jena copy as blanks, and Dr. Deziatzko pronounced that the 36-line edition was " ohne Rubrikenverzeichniss" In the fourth part of the Heredia sale, how- ever, there turned up an Index Rubricarum (said, we should note, to have been found in a binding at Bamberg), which undoubtedly be- longed to the 36-line edition. This was acquired for the Bibliotheque Nationale, and furnishes M. Delisle with another illustration. A com- parison of the two indexes shows at once that the one is a verbally (though not a literally) exact copy from the other, an absolute proof of this being given by the heading in each Incipit epistola ad thimo- theum prima. Capitulum primum^ where the needless addition of the words Capitulum primum, in contravention of the custom elsewhere observed, could hardly conceivably have occurred independently to both printers. Another singular point in which both indexes agree is in beginning a new paragraph at such a point in the line that the end of the paragraph will coincide with the end of the line, e.g.) Explicit epistola ter- cia beati iohanis apl'i. Incipit argumetu 1 epl'am b'ti iude apl'i. A trick like this could hardly have been accidental, though in connection with it we need rather a clearer explanation of M. Delisle's remark that " the length of each rubric is exactly proportioned to the space left blank in the corresponding place in the text of the Bible," which looks as though this method of printing had a reason in it. However this may be, the identity of the rubrics puts the fact that one editor borrowed from the other beyond dispute, and as Dr. Dziatzko has given good reason for believing that the 36-line editor borrowed his text from the 42-line, his argument thus receives an important extension. Incidently M. Delisle brings out several interesting facts. Thus he shows that while the rubricator of the vellum 42-line Bible at the Biblio- theque Nationale followed his index rubricarum most religiously, Henricus Cremer, the rubricator of the paper copy, varied from it considerably, and that the rubricator of the copy of the 36-line edition took similar liberties. He also corrects a mistake of Dr. Dziatzko in his reference to the fragment in the Bibliotheque Nationale containing some of the Canticles in the 42-line type. Dr. Dziatzko imagined this to have formed part of some copies of the Bible, whereas M. Delisle has little difficulty in showing that it proves the existence of an independent volume, a Litur- gical Psalter of about 38 leaves, which must have proceeded from the Gutenberg-Fust press. From this leaf also M. Delisle gives a fac- simile, as well as of the well known dates of rubrication appended to the copies of the two Bibles in the Bibliotheque. Certainly the great French library is to be congratulated on (i) the possession of vellum and paper copies of the one Bible and a paper copy of the other, (2) the occurrence of the dates of rubrication of the two paper copies, and (3) the recent acquisition of two such important documents as the fragment of the liturgical Psalter and the unique Index Rubricarum of the rarer of the two Bibles. It is clear that whoever desires thoroughly to study their relations must go to Paris, though owing to the liberality of M. Delisle's illustrations the problems may now be very fairly understood even by the stay-at-homes.